Kasteel Doggenhout

En un regard

Le château en bref

Doggenhout Castle, also known on old maps as Kruykenberg, is a small moated castle without an inner courtyard, located south of the village of Ranst, in the province of Antwerp. The site is first mentioned in 1186 in the cartulary of the Abbey of Saint Michael in Antwerp, then in 1260 in a charter of the Abbey of Saint Bernard in Hemiksem. Held in the thirteenth century by the Berthout de Berchem family, and becoming in the fourteenth century the heart of the lordship of Ranst-Berchem, it passed to the van Liere family in 1407. The rectangular stone keep, at the south-west corner, flanked by a semicircular turret, dates from the first half of the fourteenth century. Owned from 1610, Jeanne de Rovelasca enclosed it from 1610 to 1613 within a brick residence on a sandstone plinth, turning it into a country retreat. The complex stands in a circular pond and is reached by a round-arched brick bridge, extended by a fixed wooden bridge that replaced the former drawbridge. Shortly after 1895, Jean-Corneille Adriaenssen had it restored after J.A. Van der Gucht; the timber oriel on the south façade dates from 1895. The interior retains a Renaissance fireplace from 1561 and a newel post from 1613 bearing a lion holding a shield. A crenellated neo-Gothic gateway of around 1880, now a garage, marked the former entrance. The castle and its interior have been listed as a protected monument since 1 February 1993.